Vampires in Transition

Abstract

In Vampires in Transition, I develop semiotic analyses of two key films of the Spanish transition: Elisa, vida mia (Carlos Saura, 1977) and Arrebato (Ivan Zulueta, 1980). Building off Gilles Deleuze's semiotics (1986, 1989) and Teresa de Lauretis' film theory (1984, 1987) – both drawing on Charles Sanders Peirce (1930-35/1958), I have designed three inter-connected concepts in relation to the vampire figuration: 'vampire-images', 'camera-vampires', and the 'phoenix'. One one hand, these concepts aim to approach the films under study through decolonial and trans-feminist perspectives. On the other hand, they intend to draw meaningful insights on Hispanic film studies in relation to what Donna Haraway calls “informatics of domination” (1991c). Departing from one of the peripheral meanings of the vampire – a male sexual predator, the vampire has been designed as a perverse figuration of structural violence in cybernetic capitalism which could help us understand the relationship between massive addictive habits of digital machines and western patriarchal agendas, as Wendy Huy Kyong Chun studies (2016). Drawing on Teresa de Luretis (1984) and my own trans-faggot experience, vampire-images are designed to give an account of the processes of simulation that work to erase traces of exploitation. They depart from Gilles Deleuze's time-images of modern cinema (1989), which imply irrational cuts caused by particular relinkages of sound and visual data. In addition, as my analysis of Elisa, vida mia attempts to prove, vampire-images involve icons of women as objectified or subordinated to men. The 'camera-vampire', particularly outstanding in Arrebato, stands as a tool to capture and observe the effects of vampires, but its cybernetic design involves a feedback-loop system, which often implies vampiric procedures and habits. Last, as a way to mediate between images and cameras through my own situated knowledge, I have designed an inter-connected phoenix figuration, particularly drawing on Joanne K. Rowling's Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix (2003). Building on the ethics of Zhuangzi (2003) and Karen Barad (2007), phoenix tokens transform the predatory and immortal features of vampires as a way to remind us the never-ending change of material-discursive practices. Last, by public screenings and debates and practices of situated knowledge (Haraway, 1991) and anthropophagic procedures (Suely Rolnik, 1998), I have aimed at decolonizing my id-entity (Anibal Quijano, 2000) as Spanish and European citizen designed at birth as 'male', apart from sharing and spreading revolutionary faith.